Azortharion's Beast Mastery Hunter DPS Guide - Battle for Azeroth

[bazzzyl]

(Beast Mastery) Feeding Frenzy: Damage increased by 400%
Next step - bleed stacks

[Sanitee]

Does this make feeding frenzy viable to use now?

[Turtel]

I'm not surprised. Primal Instinct is one of their very few "success stories"-traits; It modifies your rotation, it alters your resource income, and it's tuned to be good for both single target and AOE. It's what they want *all* traits to be like if they can (as evidenced by feeding frenzy being buffed to be on-par for single target and alter your playstyle somewhat due to longer frenzy).

Primal Instincts can be nerfed without removing its uniqueness/rotation altering by just lowering the amount of Mastery it gives. The vast majority of Primal Instinct's DPS increase is due to the bonus Mastery that it grants (about 85% of the DPS increase is due to the Mastery, while the Barbed Shot charge accounts for the remaining 15%). This is evidenced by the fact that gaining Primal Instincts a second time (which does not grant an extra charge, and thus the only charge is an increase in the Mastery given) still results in a DPS increase that's larger than the DPS increase of the next best traits (prenerf Thunderous Blast and Laser Matrix). In other words, Primal Instincts could have the extra charge of Barbed Shot removed and it would still be the top trait for BM hunters, which implies that the Mastery component of Primal Instincts is overtuned right now.

However, the suspiciously large buff to Feeding Frenzy does seems to support your theory/suspicion that Blizzard are attempting to make the spec-specific traits the most optimal traits for each spec, and the generic traits less optimal (which is further supported by the nerfs to Thunderous Blast and Laser Matrix). Most of the buffs do seem to have gone to spec-specific traits (Archive of the Titans being the only exception), although a counter point would be that a few spec-specific traits have been nerfed as well.

This post was all based on Azortharion's Azerite trait stacked chart from the BM Icy Veins guide, which I've annotated with what I expect the buffs and nerfs to change:


The reasoning for my 'napkin math' for Feeding Frenzy goes as follows:
1. Additional Feeding Frenzy traits after the first do not further increase the Barbed Shot duration. Instead, each additional Feeding Frenzy trait adds an additive +100% to the damage component of the trait.
2. Since the Feeding Frenzy buff was a +400% buff to the damage component of Feeding Frenzy, the buff is equivalent to gaining the pre-buff Feeding Frenzy 4 additional times after the first (or 5 pre-buff Feeding Frenzy traits in total)
3. Since each additional trait of Feeding Frenzy (after the first) adds exactly the same amount of damage, the damage increase of going from 3 traits to 5 traits would be the same size as the damage increase of going from 1 trait to 3 traits.
4. In other words, to find the DPS increase of the buffed first trait of Feeding Frenzy, we'd just need to add double the DPS increase of going from 1 trait to 3 traits of the pre-buff Feeding Frenzy onto the DPS increase of the pre-buff first trait of Feeding Frenzy (I hope that sentence was not too convoluted :/).

[Undustas]

Primal Instincts can be nerfed without removing its uniqueness/rotation altering by just lowering the amount of Mastery it gives. The vast majority of Primal Instinct's DPS increase is due to the bonus Mastery that it grants (about 85% of the DPS increase is due to the Mastery, while the Barbed Shot charge accounts for the remaining 15%). This is evidenced by the fact that gaining Primal Instincts a second time (which does not grant an extra charge, and thus the only charge is an increase in the Mastery given) still results in a DPS increase that's larger than the DPS increase of the next best traits (prenerf Thunderous Blast and Laser Matrix). In other words, Primal Instincts could have the extra charge of Barbed Shot removed and it would still be the top trait for BM hunters, which implies that the Mastery component of Primal Instincts is overtuned right now.

However, the suspiciously large buff to Feeding Frenzy does seems to support your theory/suspicion that Blizzard are attempting to make the spec-specific traits the most optimal traits for each spec, and the generic traits less optimal (which is further supported by the nerfs to Thunderous Blast and Laser Matrix). Most of the buffs do seem to have gone to spec-specific traits (Archive of the Titans being the only exception), although a counter point would be that a few spec-specific traits have been nerfed as well.

This post was all based on Azortharion's Azerite trait stacked chart from the BM Icy Veins guide, which I've annotated with what I expect the buffs and nerfs to change:


The reasoning for my 'napkin math' for Feeding Frenzy goes as follows:
1. Additional Feeding Frenzy traits after the first do not further increase the Barbed Shot duration. Instead, each additional Feeding Frenzy trait adds an additive +100% to the damage component of the trait.
2. Since the Feeding Frenzy buff was a +400% buff to the damage component of Feeding Frenzy, the buff is equivalent to gaining the pre-buff Feeding Frenzy 4 additional times after the first (or 5 pre-buff Feeding Frenzy traits in total)
3. Since each additional trait of Feeding Frenzy (after the first) adds exactly the same amount of damage, the damage increase of going from 3 traits to 5 traits would be the same size as the damage increase of going from 1 trait to 3 traits.
4. In other words, to find the DPS increase of the buffed first trait of Feeding Frenzy, we'd just need to add double the DPS increase of going from 1 trait to 3 traits of the pre-buff Feeding Frenzy onto the DPS increase of the pre-buff first trait of Feeding Frenzy (I hope that sentence was not too convoluted :/).

I'm a truck driver and understood none of that..I will wait for someone to tell me if it's good or still bad lmao.

[Eutyr]

Recently, SimCraft was updated to take into account the Basic Attack macro that most people who try at all are using. This lifted Haste's stat weight significantly because now your Basic Attack damage effectively scales with Haste.

Are you talking about the basic attack macro for your pet you have on your icy veins guide?

[Gasparde]

I'm a truck driver and understood none of that..I will wait for someone to tell me if it's good or still bad lmao.

TL;DR: 1 Feeding Frenzy is pretty ok right now, still not worth stacking, several other traits are still better.

[Illana]

Anyone know how much of a raid DPS increase combined might is? Might not be worth for yourself but if it increases raid dps by more than other traits that's pretty nice

it's 5x 274 random secondary stat effectively

[NutellaCrepe]

archive of the titans vs. feeding frenzy after buff?

[Deleted]

Is there a BIS list for BM Hunters? Only one I can see is the wowhead one here http://www.wowhead.com/beast-mastery-hunter-gear-guide but the trinkets havent been updated so I'm not sure how reliable it is?

[Deleted]

Anyone have a macro for spiritmend where it first targets my mouseover, if no mousover exist it targets me?

[kaze950]

Anyone have a macro for spiritmend where it first targets my mouseover, if no mousover exist it targets me?

/cast [@mouseover, exists][@player] Spirit Mend

Should work

EDIT:

You can also add [pet:spirit beast] if you want to make it a macro for various pet abilities depending on which type you have out.

[Dracodraco]

archive of the titans vs. feeding frenzy after buff?

Fairly close with archieve winning out on long fights. I got the 385 chest from Zek'voz that happens to have both traits on, and it's simming as a ~50 increase on 5 minute fights. The break-even point happens around 3 minutes.

For what it's worth though, it feels super nice to play with feeding frenzy - threw it on for our heroic farm, and this is my frenzy uptime on our mother kill:


https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...2790&source=35

(Note that I had the charge to save it at the end, but ended up hitting KC instead of barbed shot and missing it by a global. Would probably have lost it to the next gap you see there though).

[Flodorf]

I have a question regarding a situation that seems to happen quite often, especially during bloodlust and AotW:

1) Barbed shot is about to drop off (and I can refresh it)
2) Kill Command is about to come off CD, using it would mean that my GCD would prevent me from using Barbed Shot in time.
3) Nearing the focus cap

I always feel bad having to wait to refresh Barbed Shot and wait with KC, especially when I am at the focus cap. Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening? I am using Cobra Shot as much as I can do keep focus down, but sometimes I feel I just can't spend enough focus to prevent this?

It often feels that barbed shot and KC are in contention for my GCD. :P

Is it better to refresh Barbed Shot earlier so my CD of KC doesn't go to waste?

[Sabinn]

I have a question regarding a situation that seems to happen quite often, especially during bloodlust and AotW:

1) Barbed shot is about to drop off (and I can refresh it)
2) Kill Command is about to come off CD, using it would mean that my GCD would prevent me from using Barbed Shot in time.
3) Nearing the focus cap

I always feel bad having to wait to refresh Barbed Shot and wait with KC, especially when I am at the focus cap. Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening? I am using Cobra Shot as much as I can do keep focus down, but sometimes I feel I just can't spend enough focus to prevent this?

It often feels that barbed shot and KC are in contention for my GCD. :P

Is it better to refresh Barbed Shot earlier so my CD of KC doesn't go to waste?

normally what I do when that happens is use a Cobra Shot trying to stay off that focus cap then barbed and then KC.

When you are reaching focus cap , not wasting that focus is worth more than the cd reduction you get from CS. That is if you have a GCD before frenzy expiring.

My mindset when playing BM is ( though it might be wrong ) how many GCDs can I fit before I have to refresh frenzy?
That usually does the trick for me.

[Deleted]

archive of the titans vs. feeding frenzy after buff?

Feeding Frenzy will outshine Archive of the titans tremendously up until 8 stacks of RO.

[Deleted]

Feeding Frenzy will outshine Archive of the titans tremendously up until 8 stacks of RO.

wtf? Never.
It's probably already as powerful now.

[Deleted]

wtf? Never.

The only situation I can think of where you would prefer Archive is that situation I named with 8 stacks of mastery RO or consistent aoe as FF loses value in AoE.

[Azortharion]

Feeding Frenzy will outshine Archive of the titans tremendously up until 8 stacks of RO.

This is incorrect and Alright knows that when he writes it. Like I said earlier in the thread sometime, everything Alright says is written intentionally to mislead, misinform or rouse a reaction, so you know what to do.

[NutellaCrepe]

This is incorrect and Alright knows that when he writes it. Like I said earlier in the thread sometime, everything Alright says is written intentionally to mislead, misinform or rouse a reaction, so you know what to do.

Is it better to run 2 archieves of the titans, or 1 + 1 feeding frenzy?

[Deleted]

This is incorrect and Alright knows that when he writes it. Like I said earlier in the thread sometime, everything Alright says is written intentionally to mislead, misinform or rouse a reaction, so you know what to do.

What a way to discredit or otherwise derail a constructive conversation by dismissing the entire argument without providing an ounce of proper feedback. I might be mistaken but I assumed this was a theorycrafting/min max thread.

- - - Updated - - -

Is it better to run 2 archieves of the titans, or 1 + 1 feeding frenzy?

2 Archives is essentially useless to an extent especially when there are likely to be better traits at your disposal. You would want the feeding frenzy.